The present invention relates broadly to the devices for monitoring packet data communicated over a packet data network. More particularly, this invention relates to devices for monitoring requests for content encapsulated by such packet data for oversight of Internet activity.
The Internet has become an important part of our everyday life. More specifically, web sites, e-mail, instant messaging and social networks are technologies that rely on the Internet to provide mechanisms widely used for personal, educational, and business communication. In addition, Internet-based e-commerce has become an important part of the retail chain and the supply chain of many modern businesses. The open and dynamic nature of the Internet also enables access to digital material that is deemed objectionable by parents, school administrators and/or employers. Deeming material as objectionable is subjective in nature and often involves nudity, explicit sexual acts (e.g., pornography), profanity, content not suitable for children (e.g., drugs, alcohol, tobacco, weapons, gambling, etc.) and/or content not suitable for the workplace.
Parents, schools and businesses often employ content monitoring and filtering technology that automatically identifies and filters (i.e., blocks) web page access to objectionable material based on content classification techniques. Such content classification techniques are typically performed on Domain Name System (DNS) requests and involve contextual word analysis, flesh tone analysis, maintenance of a database of categorized web sites, or a combination of all three.
The contextual word analysis and the flesh tone analysis often return false positives and thus over-block. The maintenance of a database of categorized web sites is a powerful approach; however, maintaining and a comprehensive and accurate list of categorized web sites is a difficult task due to the dynamic nature of the Internet. Thus, it can lead to false negatives and therefore allow for access to objectionable content.
Moreover, much of the commercially-available content monitoring and filtering technology is software-based and is installed on each and every monitored device. This solution is expensive and difficult to develop (as the software must be developed for the large number of processing platforms of the monitored devices). It is also difficult to maintain (particularly, for a large number of monitored devices) and can be bypassed by users with relative ease in many circumstances.